


I Love You, Vampire Prince

by olivieblake



Series: Once Upon a Hand Touch [3]
Category: Pride and Prejudice - Jane Austen
Genre: Darcy POV, F/M, Fairy Tale Elements, Vampires, but mostly he's really awkward, in which darcy is not just awkward he's also undead, jane austen x fairytales
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-30
Updated: 2021-01-30
Packaged: 2021-03-17 03:42:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,991
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29093676
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivieblake/pseuds/olivieblake
Summary: Disappointing Bingley is something like kicking a puppy or exsanguinating a virgin, which Darcy is pretty sure he would never do. Like, fairly sure.
Relationships: Elizabeth Bennet/Fitzwilliam Darcy
Series: Once Upon a Hand Touch [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134506
Comments: 39
Kudos: 141





	I Love You, Vampire Prince

**Author's Note:**

> One of three Austen-inspired shorts featuring supernatural elements.

“There,” says Wickham, dropping the knife and rising to his feet. “See? Easily done. Don’t know what you were complaining about. Hardly even hurt a bit, did it?”

Darcy sits up slowly, the pain in his head gradually subsiding as he brings one hand to the wound at his neck. The gauge is all but healed, not that he can see it in his reflection from the glass. Not that he needs to see himself in order to understand what has happened.

“I’m an abomination,” Darcy asserts with a gutting finality.

“Come now,” Wickham tuts. “That’s hardly the case.”

“I’m a monster, Wickham! A horror!”

“Oh, stop—”

“I’m a _literal atrocity_ —”

“You’re atrociously dramatic is what you are,” says an impatient Wickham whilst polishing his left canine. “I don’t understand why you’re being so unreasonable. Give it a day or so, you’ll come around.”

The idea of “coming around” to anything Wickham brings to Darcy’s life is not the sunniest of possibilities. And that does not even include the situation at hand, which Darcy had previously not considered. Up until now he’s merely viewed Wickham as a sort of irritating, morality-averse spendthrift—which, while sufficiently unpleasant, failed to account for the possibility he might be irritating, morality-averse, _and_ carnivorously undead.

“All this,” Darcy huffs, “because I wouldn’t let you run off with my fifteen-year-old sister’s dowry?”

“No,” Wickham corrects him blithely. “All this to prove a perfectly salient point that you and I are really no different from each other.”

“You’re a monster,” says Darcy.

“Oh, poo. You think you’re so terribly moral, Fitzy, but in reality you’re just kind of a dull bore.” Wickham tugs at his outlandish waistcoat, flicking dust from his shoulder. “I’m sure a little bloodlust will liven you right up.”

“You’ve maimed me,” Darcy moans. “You’ve… you’ve _destroyed_ me—”

“I’ve set you free, you imbecile,” retorts Wickham with palpable delight. “What manners could possibly matter now? Have all the women you want, and the men too, if you crave it. Spend recklessly. Slake your thirst however you wish. Quit playing the role of dutiful son and live a life of adventure, Fitzy!”

“I hate adventure,” says Darcy, darkly.

“There’s your problem,” Wickham informs him, reaching for his coat. “Anyway, I’m off. There’s a sizable purse waiting for me in Southampton,” he adds with a smarmy glint, “betwixt the fashionable tits of a charming bar wench.”

“You’re a monster,” says Darcy again.

“Yes, and now you are, too. Cheers, then!” says a jolly Mr Wickham, tipping an invisible hat and whistling as he disappears from Darcy’s private chambers.

This is what comes of a gentleman letting a profligate rogue into his home. All Darcy had meant to do was have a chat with Wickham, man-to-man, only once he realized Wickham was a man at all, he’d foolishly taken the tailoring scissors in hand. Wickham was quicker than a flash, and now here Darcy is, bitten. Morose. He was morose before this but he’d at least been normal then. Now he’s socially anxious and dead.

A monster, just as Wickham says.

Darcy sighs aloud, disappointed with himself. Tomorrow, he thinks, he’ll find a stake and drive it through his heart for the betterment of society. It’s the right thing to do. He just has to get his affairs in order and chat with Bingley, which will likely take the afternoon. But first thing tomorrow, he is quite certain he will do the world a favor and cast himself unto the depths of damnation before he makes a bigger mess.

* * *

“Please,” says Bingley, “put down the stake, Darcy.”

“Just let me die, Bingley—”

“For heaven’s sake, man, it’s only a party,” Bingley rushes out, attempting to disarm him before Darcy once again swats him away. “I promise you, Darcy,” he pleads, “it won’t be nearly so terrible as you think—”

“I won’t _know_ anyone,” Darcy reminds him.

“You’ll know _me_ ,” Bingley insists.

Darcy scoffs, woefully. “As if you won’t run off and leave me as soon as you meet someone more interesting,” he says, still toying covetously with the sharpened stake he fashioned from a mislaid umbrella. “And more importantly, what part of ‘I’m an abomination’ do you not understand?”

“Well, perhaps it won’t be so bad,” Bingley says timidly.

“Which part,” Darcy demands, “an eternity as a monster or the many ruthless mamás who’ll be angling for my fortune, never sparing a care as to whether I might use her insipid daughter’s neck for some kind of gossamer tooth floss?”

“It is… perhaps not ideal,” Bingley acknowledges. “But perhaps you’ll feel better after a brisk walk. I know that always clears my head.”

“I doubt it,” Darcy mutters.

“Then try,” Bingley says, exasperated. “Please, Darcy, for me? You know I’ll have my hands full this season and I should so hate not to have your… expertise.”

“You mean my ability to scare away imperfect brides?”

“Or to make me look better by comparison, yes. I like to think of it as one of your special talents,” Bingley assures him. “So please, just come join me at Netherfield—”

“I would literally,” sighs Darcy, “rather die.”

“Yes, you’ve made that plenty clear—but truly, Darcy, bloodlust or no, you cannot think to just abandon me,” Bingley pleads with him. “With all eternity for self-flagellation, surely you can last a single season? It will feel like nothing, gone in a flash,” he determines with his usual radiant optimism.

“And if I kill someone?” Darcy asks.

“Don’t,” Bingley replies.

Bingley is incurably cheerful and also most likely underestimating the gravity of the situation, given the stirring in Darcy’s gut that feels worryingly like hunger. Still, Darcy does hate to deny him. It is something like kicking a puppy or exsanguinating a virgin, which Darcy is pretty sure he would never do. Like, fairly sure.

“Fine,” grumbles Darcy. “One season and then my dance with death.”

“You might meet someone,” counters Bingley.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Darcy assures him. “Nothing can possibly keep me from ridding the world of my corruption.”

“Not even a very pretty girl?” teases Bingley.

“Trust me, Charles. Such a beauty does not exist,” is Darcy’s mournful reply.

* * *

“See? This is fine,” says Bingley, with all his puppy-virgin energy on blast.

“This is not fine,” replies Darcy. “This is a wide-awake nightmare.”

“Quiet. Try to smile.” Bingley himself wears a broad smile, the very portrait of approachability. Whereas the thought of being approached makes Darcy very ill.

“Since when is marriage so important to you?” Darcy sighs wretchedly, disturbing a flock of young ladies nearby.

“Companionship is the highlight of existence, Darcy,” Bingley murmurs through his smile, nodding reassuringly to the women.

“Doubtful,” says Darcy, scouring the room with a grimace. “I ought to go.”

“What? We’ve only just arrived—”

“I’m—” Darcy grimaces. “I’m hungry.”

“So? Have an hors d'oeuvre.” Bingley’s still smiling.

“No, Bingley, I’m…” Darcy leans in, gesturing to the glint of a fang. “I’m _hungry_.”

“Oh. _Oh_.” Bingley looks shocked and dismayed, as well he ought for having kept Darcy from his demise. This would not have been a problem had he simply stepped aside and let Darcy keep his appointment with necessary self-destruction, as any true gentleman would. “Can you not rein it in for the sake of propriety?”

“I’m trying to, Bingley, but I can’t think—”

“Hello,” says a garishly cheerful woman. “Mr Bingley, is it? Meet my daughters, Jane and Elizabeth—”

“Christ Almighty,” mutters Darcy, before being elbowed into silence.

“Hello there,” replies Bingley in his usual friendly manner. “Jane, you said?”

Naturally Bingley selects the pretty one. The other is hardly anything to look twice at. Hardly any flesh, much less blood. 

“Would you like to dance?” asks the other one, the odd one. She has a look of queerness to her compared with the rest of the room, as if she learned how to dance from a book.

“No,” says Darcy.

“Ah. Well.” She grimaces and turns away, and for half a moment Darcy almost regrets being left alone, as Bingley’s sisters are hardly fit company and also, he’s growing increasingly concerned he may try to bite one of them. Which would be most unseemly, to say the least.

“What’s wrong with you?” Bingley asks him later. “You don’t like Miss Bennet’s sister? She at least asked you to dance even though you’ve currently got the face of a mangy ogre. Tighten up,” he suggests, attempting to adjust Darcy’s expression until Darcy once again swats him away. “You’re handsome when you put up a show, you know.”

“I’m dead,” Darcy reminds his friend sourly, “and I believe I said _outstanding beauty_ would be the only thing to persuade me to go beyond the season.” He glances around the room, sickened and also revoltingly elated by the prospect of taking any of these young women by the throat as he so wishes to do. “As it is, there is no woman here more tempting than the sharpened stake I left at home.”

“Oh Darcy, you _are_ a pit of malaise,” says Bingley.

Darcy has a feeling someone has overheard them, but he doesn’t care. 

After all he’s going to be gone soon, God-willing. Only a few thousand parties more.

* * *

Darcy tries to get by with squirrels. And deer on occasion, when he can. He has the distinct sensation that human blood would be preferable but, again, he need only last until Bingley is married, which at this rate could be any moment.

Darcy’s ravenously hunting around for some rabbit in the kitchen when he hears Jane Bennet has gone and soiled herself in the rain, requiring a long stay at Netherfield for rehabilitation. Foolish girl. Thinks she’s so very clever. Needless to say it will probably work.

When he comes upstairs, trying to pluck a bit of fur from somewhere behind his teeth, he finds that the younger Bennett, Elizabeth, is there. She’s chatting with the other two Bingley sisters, albeit not very well. She seems immensely uncomfortable and he doesn’t blame her.

“Oh. You’re here,” he says.

“Always so nice to be met with a warm welcome,” she replies. 

“I wouldn’t know,” he says. “People hate seeing me.”

“I can see why,” she answers.

He excuses himself. The next day, she’s still there. Apparently she’s staying to care for her sister, who has a bad cold that Bingley himself cannot leave alone. Unfortunately Elizabeth Bennet’s presence here is doing something very odd to Darcy’s nose— _clearing_ it. His sinuses, that is. He feels very… keen. Keenly aware of her, her heat. Her eyes are very fine and her neck is long and slender. He finds he deeply wishes to sink into her. With teeth. His teeth, that is.

“You are reading,” he observes aloud.

“How astute you are,” replies Elizabeth. “Tell me, how long did you study deduction?”

“You’re being incredibly rude,” says Darcy, pleased. “Wonderful. Now I can do away with any social pretense myself.”

“My god, I hate to imagine what it looks like once you’ve _done away_ with pretense,” says Elizabeth, frowning. “This is you pretending?”

“Not anymore,” says Darcy, adding, “That book is terrible.”

“Is there anything you _do_ like?” Elizabeth demands. 

“Books generally are fine. That specific one is terrible.”

“You must be awfully fun at parties.”

“No, actually I’m terrible at parties.”

“I—” Elizabeth stares at him. “I know,” she says slowly.

Darcy is about to shrug and turn away when Elizabeth clears her throat.

“I wonder,” she says, “how long it would take for you to learn to enjoy yourself among other human beings?”

“Longer than anyone's got time for,” says Darcy. “Eternity, most likely.”

She seems… amused. Perhaps a bit mockingly. “Are you really so repulsed by other people?”

“Repulsed? No. Bewildered yes.” He frowns at her. “Is that some sort of floral perfume you’re wearing?”

“Me?” Her eyes briefly glint with confusion. “No.”

“Not floral, then. Something a bit more... aromatic.” Like a candlelit dinner in a midnight garden.

The petrichor of an open wound.

Two bodies slick with rain, nestled beneath a sky bruised with serenity and murk.

“I’m wearing no scent,” says Elizabeth, and Darcy, realizing it is again his hunger getting the better of him, rapidly turns away.

“Enjoy your terrible book,” he says over his shoulder, disappearing down the hall to find something gamey to chew.

* * *

“You’re still a bore, I see,” sighs Wickham, who stops by Netherfield for presumably no other reason than to torture Darcy. “Why haven’t you run off and spilled some maiden blood yet?”

“You sicken me,” says Darcy, depressed. The weather has been bright with bloom and his spirits have been ghastly.

“Oh, come now. Surely you could persuade one of Bingley’s insipid sisters to—” He gestures obscenely. “Bend the neck?”

“My god.” Darcy feels queasy, although possibly also he is starving. “Do you really not intend to help me at all, not even a little?”

“No one will miss the cook’s maid,” chatters Wickham, spitefully ignoring him. “Or perhaps one of the gangly things in debtor’s prison. Isn’t there someone at Pemberley you could—?”

“STOP,” bemoans Darcy, who is salivating. “I’m not you, Wickham. I can’t just lay waste to everything I see!”

“Well, you’d better lay waste to something before you snap,” advises Wickham. “You’re already looking very sickly. And you’d rather not have it be someone in a situation you can’t control, don’t you think? Next thing you know you’ll be slicing Bingley open with a butter knife.”

“You disgust me.” Darcy is heartsick and repulsed.

“So you’ve mentioned,” replies Wickham. “Anyway, what’s this I hear about you and a certain young Bennet?”

“What? You mistake me. It is Bingley, not I, who is beset with Bennets.” Not that Darcy would ever admit the terrible lusciousness that is Elizabeth’s clear eyes, her supple flesh, even if he planned to exist beyond the season. 

“Mm,” says Wickham doubtfully. “That is not what Miss Bingley says.”

“I haven’t a single clue what Miss Bingley says.”

“Apparently not.” Wickham smiles, suddenly overflowing with gaiety, which is worrisome to say the least. The last time he looked so delighted he had been holding Darcy down with a blade. “Well, I’m off then.”

“As you like,” says Darcy with an impassive wave of his hand. For being so terribly dead he’s been suffering such pounding headaches. Everything plagues him, precisely as it did before, only colder now. Or more stiffly.

He is once again caught by Bingley while ideating the concept of a new, more glorious stake, which will most likely solve the problem of the headaches. Again he is forced to participate in human society, for which he does his best to sate himself in advance, but it’s no use. A squirrel, however fresh, is not a virgin maid.

“You look very poorly this evening,” says a voice at his side. He glances askance, the room half-swaying.

“Oh, Miss Elizabeth,” he notes distractedly. “How very inelegant of you to comment.”

“I don’t see why you should be the only one allowed to tell society to hang the rules, unless it is purely because you are a man. Or rich. Neither of which seems very persuasive.” She squints at him in a most unappealing way that makes his sick heart swell and his parched throat ache. “Are you very sure you’re well, Mr Darcy?”

“Not sure at all. Will you dance?” he asks bluntly. Perhaps movement will help clear the fog in his head, which besets him like a graveyard mist.

“I…” She seems hesitant. “I once said I’d rather die than dance with you.”

“Understandable.” He turns away and she stops him.

“But if it would make you feel better—”

“It would. I think.”

“Then so be it. So long as you promise not to be beastly.”

“I am exactly that,” he says, but she must take it as an apology, because she condescends to offer the dance.

She gives him her hand and allows him to coax her through the motions, which to him are ever more sickening. Her proximity is maddening, and shortly after the song ends he is driven outside, not entirely realizing her hand is still in his.

“Mr Darcy, I do hope—”

“I apologize,” he says, or perhaps snarls, and sees blearily the way her sharp eyes suddenly cut wide.

“Oh,” she says. “Oh, Mr Darcy, you do have a touch of…”

She trails off.

“A touch of what?” he demands.

“Of… fang,” she determines in a small voice.

“Oh.” He straightens, turning away. “Yes,” he mumbles, trying to calm himself by naming the various dull treaties he studied as a boy. “Things are a bit bad lately.”

“You’re not—” She stops. “You aren’t—?”

She seems to know. In fact, she seems to not only know but be curious, and to be excessively condoling in her curiosity. The pretense briefly incenses him beyond rationality, and he is abruptly inflamed.

“You’re not so very unclever, are you, Miss Elizabeth?” he snaps at her bitterly. “I am precisely that godless monster which you cannot bring yourself name. It is shameful enough to be so damned without the burden of your pity.”

“I only meant…”

She trails off.

Then, absurdly, she steps towards him.

“Here,” she says, offering him her wrist. “You’ll be… careful, won’t you?”

He stares at her. “You haven’t the slightest idea what you’re offering.”

“Nonsense, I read it in a terrible book,” she replies buoyantly. “And I am only trying to help.”

“Why?”

“Because you look like death warmed up.”

“That’s ridiculous. I’m fucking freezing.”

“Well, if you’re going to be a dick about it.” She moves to withdraw her hand but he catches it, his lightning reflexes startling them both. 

“I do apologize,” he says, clearing his throat. “If I startled you. I did not mean—”

“You’re needlessly polite for a godless monster,” she says, which seems to be some sort of gesture of _get on with it_ , and Darcy wants to laugh until his monstrous head rolls from his lifeless corpse. Instead, he lowers his head to her proffered arm.

She is wearing gloves, which he rolls down to the beginning of her palm and no further. He warms her skin with his breath, carefully, before brushing it with his lips. “Tell me if it hurts,” he murmurs.

She says nothing.

He can feel her tell-tale inhale when his teeth puncture the surface. At first it is enough to simply marinate his gums in it—the sweet bordeaux that is her blood—but he permits himself to suckle at her guiltily, briefly, until the vision in his head grows clear.

He licks the wound closed, compressing it to stop the bright free-flow of blood, and then carefully replaces her glove.

“I do not think I shall ever enjoy a party,” he tells her after a moment.

Their eyes meet, and she searches for something in his face. He does not know if she finds it.

“I should think not,” she agrees.

Then she fumbles for the doorway and is gone.

* * *

“Do you think she loves me?” asks Bingley desperately, apropos of nothing, and Darcy looks up from the salacious novel he last saw in Elizabeth Bennet’s hands. Love is an odd thing to worry about, in Darcy’s opinion. After all, it is not Bingley who daily fights the urge to cozy up inside a crypt; but then, no man can ever truly understand another’s suffering.

“Does she say she does?” Darcy asks.

“No,” admits Bingley fretfully.

“Does she speak of love in your presence at all?”

“No.”

“Well, then I would imagine she does not love you,” Darcy decides, returning to his book without even further thought as to their discussion.

“You’re sure?” Bingley bemoans. “I suppose you must be right.”

But Darcy is not listening. The novel is very engrossing and indeed, very bad by every metric that counts aside from personal enjoyment. He has hardly spent a more marvelous hour, and imagines that perhaps one day Elizabeth might join him; might remark upon this line or that. He finds he thinks of her very often, and not exclusively because he is now privy to the way she tastes. (It is remarkably rich, not entirely sweet. Like the brine of a beautiful roast.)

For whatever reason, Jane Bennet does not come around anymore, and therefore neither does Elizabeth. This depresses Darcy to a degree he cannot understand; presumably he is hungry. He has returned to rabbits and other woodland creatures and it is a bit like eternally slopping gruel down his throat, particularly now that he knows the alternative can be so filling. So satisfying. So enticing and indeed, so tempting.

But now Elizabeth is gone from his life and for unrelated reasons, he wants to die again.

“Do stop complaining,” says his aunt, Lady Catherine, whom he is compelled to visit. “Dead or not, you’re in possession of a handsome fortune, Fitzwilliam. To that end,” she adds, “I do hope you’ll recall my intentions that you marry my daughter Anne.”

“I can’t,” says Darcy. “I’m going to run myself through with a stake just as soon as Bingley’s settled.”

“Well, I don’t see why marriage should have to stand in the way of that,” says Lady Catherine.

Once again Darcy does not know why he has come. After all, Bingley is now very sad and tragic about something (Darcy cannot remember it being mentioned ever, perhaps he should ask) and therefore would likely not notice if Darcy finally fitted a stake to his breast as they agreed that he wouldn’t. He is about to prowl around the house looking for something to sharpen when he realizes that fate has intervened.

“Oh,” he says upon sight of Elizabeth Bennet.

“Oh?” she echoes. “That’s what you have to say to me, ‘oh’?”

He wonders if perhaps she’s gotten a haircut or a new dress or something. “You look very nice,” he attempts.

Her eyes narrow significantly, almost to slits. “You look ridiculous.”

“Well, naturally,” Darcy fumbles. “Is that relevant?”

She stares at him.

“I think it very likely that I shall forever loathe you,” she says, which distresses Darcy a bit. He does not normally care what people think of him but this is not very comforting, he thinks. It does not sit well with him at all.

Still, he hears something of an opening in her words.

“Meaning there is a slim chance you may not?” he asks, hoping he did not imagine it.

Elizabeth blinks owlishly at him.

“My god, you are strange,” she says.

“Well, you may recall I am a monster,” he reminds her.

“I didn’t say that.”

“You didn’t have to.”

He finds that his aunt is watching them disapprovingly and wonders whether he has something on his face. He tries to surreptitiously wipe it away while Elizabeth says with surprising fervor, “If I do not call you a monster, Mr Darcy, it is because I am not such a monster myself to presume I can understand your circumstances. But as to what I _do_ understand, you are strange and insensitive and rude and indeed, to your friends quite _viciously_ spiteful—”

He is not entirely listening. In part it is because he still worries there is something on his face. It is also because she is very near to him; near enough that he makes an unintentional keening sound aloud, like a low moan that slips from a vacancy in his throat. 

He turns pale (paler, anyway) at the sight of Elizabeth’s shocked face. “So very rude of me,” he mumbles, “I know. My sincere apologies.”

“You sound as if you have been starving.” She looks oddly anxious at the thought.

“I suppose I have been,” he acknowledges. “I have not eaten so well since…”

He trails off, clearing his throat, and her eyes widen.

“Has there been no one else?” she demands, and if she was anxious before, now she is inexplicably agitated.

“None,” he says. “None but you.”

At first she is silent. Perhaps even furious.

Then she looks around, grimacing, and indicates surreptitiously for him to join her on the balcony. His aunt is still watching; perhaps it is his waistcoat that upsets her, he thinks, before any thought of his aunt abruptly dissolves.

Outside, Elizabeth perfunctorily removes her glove, holding out her arm without looking at him. “Here,” she says, as if it means nothing. “Have some and be done with it.”

He stares at her.

“Be done with what?”

She glares at him and again, a small whimper escapes him. “Apologies, I—”

“Just do it.” She turns her face away. “I do not need your blood on my hands.”

“Indeed not,” he says earnestly, worryingly, “as it will be _your_ blood. _Your_ hands.” 

If she softens towards him, he may have only imagined it. She resolutely does not look at him.

“Fine.” He lifts the tender flesh of her arm to his lips and tries to steady himself. Already he slavers with craving. “Apologies if—”

“It doesn’t hurt. Just be quick about it.”

She must be lying, though, because she inhales sharply when he bends his neck and scrapes his teeth, baring a thin slice that bleeds in pearls, like dewdrops. He licks and sucks, nips and sighs, until at last the puncture is once again deep enough to drink down like wine. He laps at her, gently, and she exhales with a sigh of her own that is almost, very nearly, yearning.

He thinks, briefly, of his aunt’s assertion that marriage need not get in the way of his plans. Perhaps he could… delay it. For some time. A small amount? If he did, then Elizabeth could have the money. She’d have the books at Pemberley, many of them better than her abominable tross, which he now loves because she loves it. 

“Marry me,” he whispers to her wound. 

Only then does she finally look at him.

“You are the last man I could ever be prevailed upon to marry,” she hisses at him, snatching her arm away before he can properly secure her wound, a tiny tear of her blood transgressing down to her delicate palm. “You insult my family—”

“Your family is a disaster,” Darcy says placidly. As if it is fact, which it is.

“—you tear my sister from her intended—”

“Who?”

“You… you _wrong_ Mr Wickham—”

“Wickham?” echoes Darcy, stunned. “What am I supposed to have done to Wickham?”

Elizabeth yanks her arm close to her chest, staring at him. “It is you who infected him with your… your _condition_!” she hisses. “Your ailment! And to what end?”

“You think—” Darcy stops to calculate the precise degree of nonsense and finds he can’t. None of it makes sense. He wants to laugh, to cry, to fall face-first upon a blade of irony. A blade which is also a wooden stake.

“Yes,” he says bitterly, determining there is nothing to be said. Her opinion of him is clearly low, far too low to be salvaged. “Yes,” he says deliriously, “of course it is I who infected Wickham. Of course. What else could have possibly happened? So then I am a monster after all.”

She stares at him.

“Spare yourself,” he suggests to her, his tone cutting and cruel and indeed very monstrous. “Be gone.”

She listens. Obeys. 

Were he not already dead, he might very well die a little more.

* * *

He considers a letter. An explanation. Wickham, the son of his late father’s stewards, had refused the living his father arranged and was instead given money, which he squandered, apparently falling in with a sea of rogues and miscreants and devils, and when impoverished he asked for the living again. Darcy refused it. Wickham tried to elope with his beloved sister, which Darcy prevented, only to find himself on the floor with Wickham’s knife to his throat, Wickham’s fangs in his neck. Wickham! Darcy thinks to write. A liar and a cheat, a charming, godless hellion. Had Wickham been at Elizabeth herself? He panics, but then thinks: No, surely not, as Wickham would not take in doses. He would destroy her without care to her fate, and so in the end all Darcy writes is: _Be careful. Be witty and wild, be good and be well, and let no other monsters into your life. I should hate to see you waste it._

It is all but a farewell, and very shortly, a banister from the gallery is sharpened to a point and aimed at Darcy’s chest. But then Bingley bursts in, inconveniently.

“Are you _sure_ she does not love me?” Bingley demands.

“My dear Bingley,” Darcy says with his eyes closed, “have you ever known me to be right about anything at all?”

“No,” Bingley says, frowning. “Not even remotely.”

“Then I cannot think,” Darcy sighs, “why you’d even bother to ask.”

* * *

After a brief wrestling match, Darcy is once again persuaded to live, or whatever cheap imitation of it he is currently manifesting. “You promised the season,” Bingley reminds him sternly, and as Darcy is nothing if not a man of his word, he groans and bears it. But he insists Bingley come to Pemberley, because he’s grown sick of society and misses his sister.

“You look awful!” exclaims Georgiana.

“I am dead,” Darcy informs her gravely. 

“I like it,” says Georgiana rousingly. “Makes you look rakish.”

“You’ve always been amusingly blind to my faults.”

“I do have an incredibly generous disposition,” Georgiana returns playfully, and for a time Darcy is relieved he’s come. She soothes him.

Wickham sends a letter (it says “hahahahahaha”) which Darcy ignores, continuing to tend to his estate. He makes a manual of Pemberley’s care for Georgiana, or more disappointingly, her husband. He considers staying alive (“alive”) until she comes of age, just for her protection, but then he remembers he is an abomination, etc., and figures she’ll be fine. She’s not a silly girl, or helpless, though many men are not what they seem. Perhaps he could convince Elizabeth to look in on her…?

But then he recalls that Elizabeth would never do so. After all, she hates him. She said so herself.

* * *

Darcy hates visitors. They are his least favorite thing aside from people he meets at parties. But one day Elizabeth is visiting, and she looks flushed and embarrassed and it’s so very charming that he almost thinks she resembles himself. He invites her to meet Georgiana, hoping they’ll get along and have each other as confidantes in the wake of his forthcoming destruction. (He steers around the recent installment of his chambers in the family crypt.)

“You know,” Darcy hears Georgiana say to Elizabeth in private, “I think my brother likes you.”

Immediately, Elizabeth is reticent. “Oh, that’s—”

“Did you know he’s a vampire?” prompts Georgiana, as Darcy winces.

“I… did, yes,” admits Elizabeth. “He has mentioned it.”

“I think it makes him very dashing.”

“Well, I suppose—”

“He thinks he’s being very noble, you know, only satisfying himself with vermin,” Georgiana continues unsolicited, “but I think plenty of women would let him have a nibble if he asked.”

“Oh,” says Elizabeth, embarrassed. “I… yes, I think probably they would.”

“But he doesn’t ask,” Georgiana observes. “Does he? He asks nothing. He gives and gives. Can you say the same of anyone you know?”

Elizabeth is silent.

“Oh, silly me, I’ve been chattering for ages. Anyway, do you play cards?” asks Georgiana innocently.

Darcy no longer worries about Georgiana surviving without him. He finds he is as smugly fond of her as always, and also, she will most certainly be fine.

* * *

When Elizabeth discovers her own sister has run off with Wickham, Darcy knows it is hopeless.

“She’s as good as dead,” he says.

“Don’t say it!” exclaims Elizabeth.

“I just said it,” he reminds her.

“Well, don’t say it _again_ ,” she growls, holding a hand to her temple as she paces his sitting room with the letter in hand. 

“Perhaps he won’t kill her too quickly,” Darcy suggests, although it is very unlikely. He cannot imagine Wickham will restrain himself. He has never been known to do so before.

Elizabeth gives him an exasperated look. “Even if she lives, her good name will be ruined. And either way our family will be sunk.”

“Absurd, but probably true,” Darcy admits. It is the way of things, hence his concern for his sister Georgiana.

Elizabeth paces again, then shakes her head. “I must go,” she says. “My family, however little you think of them, is in crisis. I shouldn’t be here.”

“You could stay,” Darcy says. “She won’t be any less dead tomorrow.”

Elizabeth barks a laugh, half-hysterically. “You are truly so unsympathetic?”

“No, I sympathize,” he says, and he does. “I just wish you wouldn’t leave."

She blinks.

Blinks again.

Soften for a moment. 

Then sighs, heading for the doorway, and he relents in silence to the usual prick of pain.

She stops just before she passes through it, turning to face him.

“I do not think we will ever see each other again,” she says. She sounds oddly sorrowful, as if she might cry.

“Perhaps not,” Darcy says. Statistically speaking she is correct, and in any case, however long this takes to solve, he may be deader then than he is now. 

“I will think of you on occasion,” she offers in parting, lifting her chin and taking with her all the spirit and life in the room.

Even before she goes, he already knows he cannot resign himself to that.

* * *

“What will it take?” Darcy demands of Wickham. Lydia Bennet is sitting drowsily in the corner, her lips blue, teeth chattering, body all but depleted of any necessarily vitals. “You know I cannot let you do this.”

“It’s too late,” Wickham points out, apparently unfazed. “She’s nearly gone, and once she is—”

“She will not be,” Darcy cuts in flatly. “Because you’ll stop this at once, you’ll nurse her back to health, and then you’ll marry her.”

“I most certainly will not,” Wickham says with a laugh. “Have you met her? She’s a menace.”

He lifts Lydia’s chin, then drops it. She sags to the side like a sad paper doll.

“Yes, she may be that,” Darcy says, “but she’ll be your lawfully wedded menace.”

He is certain of this. And when Darcy is certain, he is very little unswayed.

Wickham perceives this; professes a theatrical doubt. “How do you think you’ll persuade me?” he demands.

Darcy is silent for a moment. It has taken him some time to realize it, but he now understands two things about Wickham: one, he’s terrible and unlikely to change, and two, his primary motivation is Darcy’s misery. He turned Darcy to a monster not for any purpose but to humiliate him, destroy him. Not to enact any single event or circumstance, but for the constancy of suffering itself. 

“You want my unhappiness? Have it,” says Darcy. “I’ll no longer try to destroy myself. You’ll be free to observe my degradation for the rest of time while I waste away in gloom and despair.”

“Promise?” asks Wickham.

“I swear, I will no longer attempt the stake. Provided you do as I’ve asked.”

“Hm.” Wickham drums his finger atop Lydia’s lolling head. “Sounds terrible for you,” he says giddily, already half-convinced.

“It will be. Much more awful than for you. After all, Lydia Bennet will live what, a fraction of time? Some few decades or less? But I will waste away for centuries,” Darcy points out. “You can watch me starve myself slowly, my sanity drifting from me like the grains of sand in an hourglass, with ever more squalor and grief.”

For a moment he pictures it. It is a prison. He will be this, monstrous, forever. 

But then he imagines Elizabeth—knows she will not have to be sad—and he knows it will forever be worth it. He knows it like he knows his own inactive pulse.

“Sounds depressing as hell,” says Wickham cheerily. “I’m in.”

“It’s a deal?”

“It’s a deal.”

“Very well,” says Darcy, having willingly sealed his fate for the benefit of the Bennets, a family he does not even like. “Then let’s get your new betrothed to the doctor before she does something even more foolish and dies.”

* * *

He does not see or hear from Elizabeth but he knows, and is comforted by knowing, that she must be somewhere else and happy. He, meanwhile, informs Bingley there is no longer any danger of staking himself through the heart, much to his ongoing misery. He adds that perhaps Bingley ought to consider asking Jane more directly if she loves him. Like, literally those words might suffice.

“You really think that will work?” Bingley crows in consternation.

“Certainly better than asking me,” Darcy reminds him.

On this at least they agree, so Bingley drags him to Netherfield. Darcy has every intention to read something smutty and horrific but discovers his aunt has been there making threats to the Bennets. 

“What on earth has gotten into you?” he demands.

“You’re to marry my daughter!” Lady Catherine barks at him.

“I do not recall agreeing to that,” says Darcy. “And it really would not just slip my mind.”

“Well, you certainly can’t marry that Bennet girl,” protests Lady Catherine. 

“If I do not marry Elizabeth Bennet, that will be her doing, not mine,” Darcy points out, which is the first time he’s ever really admitted (minus his first proposal, which was impulsive, to say the least) that he will not marry anyone else. It will have to be Elizabeth Bennet or eternal solitude, no in between.

Though of course she won’t have him.

Right? 

“Like hell she won’t,” mutters Lady Catherine. “Rotten little wretch.”

Although it is meant to discourage him, Darcy takes this as a promising sign.

* * *

It is almost as if Elizabeth has been waiting for him.

“I have been… so terribly foolish,” she says, her eyes glistening with something, possibly tears. “Trusting Wickham’s word over yours. Presuming you malicious when in fact you’re just an antisocial idiot.” She sighs, reaching up to touch his hair, and she is gloveless this time. Exposed to him, vulnerable. “I ought to have been kinder than I was,” she says, “and less proud, I suspect.”

She is magnificent in her turmoil, and he is helpless to it. To her.

“You must allow me to tell you,” Darcy says, “how unpleasant and combative you are. And how lovely. And how honest.” He touches her cheek softly. “And how marvelously singular. And—”

He swallows. “And you must allow me to show you how you have bewitched me,” he says with a hysterical laugh, “body and soul, should I even still possess one—”

“You do,” Elizabeth says urgently. “A kind one, a good one—”

“Well, if I do, and a heart to match, then lastly let me tell you how ardently I love…” He hesitates, leaning forward to breathe softly against her warm skin, her beating heart. “I love, I love you.”

Her eyes close. As do his.

“If you still feel as you did before,” he begins, and she shakes her head.

“I do not. You cannot imagine how differently I feel.”

“And what has done it, then?” 

Their fingers interlace; he touches the side of her neck with his lips. He grazes the sharp points of his teeth against her until she shivers.

“You’re just so very charming at parties,” she whispers.

“And have such terrible taste in books?”

“That too.”

They are close now, closer than they have ever been. 

“Is it love, then?”

For him yes, he has already made it plain. For her it remains a mystery.

“Unfortunately I think so,” she murmurs.

“Hm.” Logistics yet remain. “Will you ask me to… bite you?” he wonders aloud. “More, er. Transformatively this time?”

“Turn me, you mean? No. No, darling, no.” She shakes her head. “I know better than to live forever.”

“Indeed,” Darcy exhales, half in disappointment, though not in grief. “I suppose you do.”

“But I’ll make you very happy,” Elizabeth assures him. “Deliriously so, for as long as I can.”

“And then?”

But she silences him with a finger to his lips.

“Why bother with eternity when we have right now?” she asks, and with his hand clutched to hers beside her heart, they at last share a kiss, and then only their wanting is monstrous.

* * *

After Lizzie passes away—and Bingley, and Jane, though to everyone’s collective dismay, not crotchety old Lydia—Darcy finds that his wife has left him a list. 

_TO MY BELOVED HUSBAND: THINGS YOU MUST DO BEFORE YOU ARE PERMITTED TO STAKE YOURSELF THROUGH THE HEART._

It is a very full list, though it needn’t be. The first item is “learn to enjoy yourself among other human beings,” which she knows perfectly well will be a trial that will last him the rest of time.

“You don’t look nearly miserable enough,” observes Wickham with a caddish pout. “This was supposed to benefit me eventually.”

“Be patient,” Darcy says. “Plenty of time yet.”

But in reality he knows it will not be so. He will not have misery. He has Lizzie’s list, her ideas and dreams and her terrible books, and he will be very busy with the life that she has left in him.

“I’ve got to run,” Darcy tells his unwelcome visitor. “I’ve got plans.”

“Doing what?” demands Wickham. “Since when?”

Since he learned there were to be votes considered for women, which was not strictly on Lizzie’s list, but would certainly be something she’d want him to see to. And then after that, who knows? Perhaps he’ll publish her diaries, immortalize her words, eternalize her in deeds. The possibilities are endless.

“Fuck off,” Darcy tells Wickham gladly, feeling the sun on his bloodless skin and delighting in the crispness of a fleeting mortal breeze.

It would be a very beautiful forever after all.

**Author's Note:**

> [Thank you for celebrating my birthday with me!](https://archiveofourown.org/series/2134506)


End file.
